Science Speaks! with Sam Sternberg

Welcome back! Come join us for October's Science Speaks! book signing and presentation hosted by the NYC DOE STEM Department and the National Archives at NYC. Dr. Samuel H. Sternberg, assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University, will talk about the book he co-wrote with Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution. We will learn about the discovery, development, and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology. Dr. Sternberg's doctoral research in the laboratory of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Dr. Jennifer Doudna focused on the mechanism of DNA targeting by RNA-guided bacterial immune systems (CRISPR—Cas9) and on the development of these systems for genome engineering applications. His work has been published in the journals Nature, Science, and Cell, and been covered in The New York Times, Science News, and The Scientist. He was a co-author of an article in Science that proposed a moratorium on editing the human germline until safety and societal implications are broadly discussed. This talk is relevant to teachers of all grade levels. All participants will receive a free copy of A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution.